In the early 2000’s, you could throw up a calculator. A todo list. A forum. An affiliate marketing page (a blog). A favicon generator. An image combiner. A love calculator. A timer. Etc…Now a days, the kinds of product required to be “minimally viable” is beyond what an average developer can program by themselves, in a reasonable amount of time.
There are some niche cases, but just think about it. What are you going to build, that doesn’t already exist, and how are you going to market it, make people pay for it, afford it yourself, and offer a seamless experience? We have every social media site. Every video streaming site. Every audio streaming site. There isn’t a single tool I personally use, that I can’t just google, and find 20 companies offering it with a generous free-tier.
It’s kind of like comparing the person who invented the fork, to the person who invented the air fryer. in 2023, you can’t just bend some sharp metal, an make a MVP. Shit’s gotten harder, and harder, and harder.
I thought that by focusing on a niche and taking dedicated actions, I thought that it’s possible but after reading this, I reflected on how many such cases I have actually seen and now I’m a bit insecure. wonder how you guys are thinking.
This is 70% horse shit but if you do it like everyone else then yes, you are fucked. Every area of every area is getting more competitive.
The vast majority of product dev, consulting, and programming jobs are CRUD which is why the vast majority of computer science degrees are going to waste.
For clarity, throwing up a calculator, A todo list or A forum was really only profitable when it was on a “new” platform like the iPhone or marketed correctly to the correct group.
CRUD apps will be fine if it is a specialized ones like Grinder for Cats(Super specific social site/forum) or Twitter for albino little people from Albania. But if you are looking for low effort apps then sure but how much value were they adding even back then?